Montana State University - Sentinel Yearbook (Missoula, MT)

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'....! '- V,-.--xxx V jf g f-a.,.,,,..,, V ff,--... ,,a..,. I l,..- '- X fp..-.1'vr-...-f-5 ' A xg. ,X XUFHESEI .,X, Lx! I' .gil X, .f 1 I ft H -- li. - 'f,,s,V -,'f'jw X! ' 1 ' ' - ' I V - I- 4 . is plea. i:cr:..f...::ga-. f-.-..::' -. ,- -. .Z .. ' ' r, , , . ',...:':a'. ' W- '-Y-M' 1 PERMANENT CLASS ORGANIZATIONS AND CLASS REUNIONS .HIC Iiditor of the Sentinel, as he tells me, desires to bring about some form of permanent organization of the graduating classes of the State 'University which will result in the gathering of a larger body of the alumni at the annual Commencement and in -1 their having a better time. At present, he tells me, he finds that the alumni, stringing back, one or two from a g'iven class Iq ILL at a given Commencement, and lacking the companionship of I 'KY the college mates of their own day, are likely to find Com- mencement only a melancholy reminiscence of old times. Ile feels, no doubt, that if they could meet a group of the students of their own day and exchange views of the flight of time with the men and women they used to know, they would enjoy the occasion more, have their University loyalty stimulated, and return to another Commencement more gladly. The reason why .I. was asked to contribute on this subject was that your editor overheard two of us graduates of many years ago from a prominent Middle VVest- ern college discussing the class reunions there. Grinnell College is, of course, not the only one in which the problem of alumni loyalty has been solved, but it is a college in which the problem which now exists at the University existed at the time when I graduated and has since been solved in a very notable way. Ifor many years after my graduation from college I was so situated as to be able to go back for the annual Commencement almost every year. Year by year the number of my classmates to return for the Commencement dwindled. The students whom I had known in the lower classes of my day graduated and Went their way, and I gradually found myself among a body of strangers, the older members of the faculty being, at length, my only acquaintances. The eighth year after my graduation I enjoyed Commencement so little that I definitely made up my mind to make no further effort to return at the Commencement season, and did not return for twelve years. Meanwhile there had grown up a system of five-year reunions. That is. it was definitely planned for every class to return to the college Commencement on the 5th, loth, 15th, 20th, 25th, 30th and 35th anniversary of its graduation, without making any special effort to gather for the intervening years. This concentration upon fixed reunion periods greatly increased the number of the alumni returning for Cfmmmencement, and certainly made the occasion much more enjoyable for them. At the twentieth anniversary of my own graduation a majority of the living members of the class were present, and the pleasure of the meeting, if I may judge others' experience by my own, was very great. The movement for permanent class organizations, which have aided in making the five-year reunions a success, started in the college office and has been greatly aided by the college itself. lior the older classes the college authorities have taken the responsibility of asking two persons in each class to act in the positions of class secretary and class president: the later classes elect such officers at the time when I'a1.51--I oill'fa-1-ll

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f H , , Xu ..--.., ,,.--'Ns ...U . --- -X jf- 7'-f ,, , S X z N M-q,'QttL' 't i A 'Tl-IE: SE l ' i hi .1 r ..f .i :gr W . ' L, ' is-ttlttgeittit usually recognizes as spirit. The common or garden variety of college spirit has its chief satisfactions in the marginal, the accidental and the too often transient features of the daily life of an educational institution. llecausc it is playful it adds a little vagrant joy to the students existence. We need to conserve, to develop, and to direct a proper college spirit. College spirit as we now have it is founded on play. 'lfhe loyalty l have in lllllltl is based upon work. It means a comprehension by every student of the underlying ideal for which the University exists: the ideal that prompted the lylontana pio- neers to build the University into the permanent foundations o-f the state. lt means the development of sound and distinctive traditions of student conduct, and of high standards of various acctmmplishments. To be loyal, a student body must give evidence that the University has impressed its intellectual, social, and academic individuality upon the personality of every one of its members. NVe need in Montana today the development of a student attitude of mind that will cause each young man and woman admitted to the University to become possessed of a sense of personal responsibility: that he is in the University, not alone to be benefited, but to confer benehts as well: that the institution will be better and stronger for his having been a student: that he must help to raise the standard of the serious work of the University. That student whose feeling of regard for the University is measured in terms of athletic prowess or of personal enjoyment is wholly lacking in that thing we call genuine loyalty. Above all the University needs today a body of graduates who carry loyalty outside of the institution. llefore we may possess a strong, vigorous alumni organization, the members of which look back with affection and reverence for the institution that gave them intellectual life, professional skill and moral responsi- bilities, we must have a strong, loyal body of students: loyal not for themselves, but for the future of the institution which holds so much in store for this state. We of Montana are rich in the treasure of youth. That youth is the priceless capital fr-om which will be returned men and women whose loyalty to the ideals of college will be transformed into service for the ideal of the commonwealth. N 4 w hm I 5 Xi Nt 9' 5 440- Q Q 363 .aim Rip izo Gsiyev 4 in f ww 'gli El W' 'li' ia' E ef ef r 1 l':lg'c 'lllllI'll'l'lI

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Zinn, Av Aqua'-Q , '. ' rf?-X' XX, :XT T' fs J ' 'ii T HE I ., . F M M hzsxzgf'-ri:vJnsf-i,:'f. 5 L -3-fm they graduate to hold for a term of years. Uy this plan the classes are all provided with officers who take a more or less active part in keeping track of their class- mates, gather and distribute information about the college and about its alumni, and so keep the class and the college in touch. The college itself has facilitated this work by compiling and maintaining a mailing list of all the former students, whether graduates or not, and sending them printed matter about the college at least two or three times a year. lt also seeks to gather news about the doings of the ahunni, and prints and circulates this news in a monthly publication, whichis sent to any alumnus or former student for a small sum. The class officers are called upon to assist in the work of gathering and distributing the alumni news. As secretary of my own class l am just now sending out a call to all former members of the class, whether they graduated from college or not, to join us in the quarter-eentennial reunion next june. The call will also be signed by the president of the class, a Duluth attorney, who will push the plans for the reunion. VVe have the help of the revised list of the addresses of all the former members of the class which was furnished from the college office a week or two ago. Not all the class organizations are equally active. l have in mind one class which graduated nearly thirty years ago, which has maintained all these years an annual circulating class letterg and another still older class which maintains, by a sort of common consent, such a letter once every two or three years. These various devices can easily be copied or modified: the total effect of them- the permanent class organization, the gathering and dissemination of college and alumni news, the five-year reunions, and the class letters--is an unusually compact and loyal body of almnni. 4 La.+.Q?. 1 I., -'TJ' , . ,1 u ti me 'gi lisa tea li Page Fifteen